Shortages of flu vaccine are nothing new in America, but this year's is a whopper. Until last week, it appeared that 100 million Americans would have access to flu shots this fall. Then British authorities, concerned about quality-control problems at a production plant in Liverpool, barred all further shipments by the Chiron Corp. Overnight, the U.S. vaccine supply dwindled by nearly half--and federal health officials found themselves making an unusual plea. Instead of beseeching us all to get vaccinated, they're now urging most healthy people between the ages of 2 and 64 not to. "This re-emphasizes the fragility of our vaccine supply," says Dr. Martin Myers of the National Network for Immunization Information, "and the lack of redundancy in our system."

　　Why is such a basic health service so easily knocked out? Mainly because private companies have had little incentive to pursue it. To create a single dose of flu vaccine, a manufacturer has to grow live virus in a 2-week-old fertilized chicken egg, then crack the egg, harvest the virus and extract the proteins used to provoke an immune response. Profit margins are narrow, demand is fickle and, because each year's flu virus is different, any leftover vaccine goes to waste. As a result, the United States now has only two major suppliers (Chiron and Aventis Pasteur)--and when one of them runs into trouble, there isn't much the other can do about it. "A vaccine maker can't just call up and order 40 million more fertilized eggs," says Manon Cox, of Connecticut-based Protein Sciences Corp. "There's a whole industry that's scheduled to produce a certain number of eggs at a certain time."

　　Sleeker technologies are now in the works, and experts are hoping that this year's fiasco will speed the pace of innovation. The main challenge is to shift production from eggs into cell cultures--a medium already used to make most other vaccines. Flu vaccines are harder than most to produce this way, but several biotech companies are now pursuing this strategy, and one culture-based product (Solvay Pharmaceuticals' Invivac) has been cleared for marketing in Europe.

　　For America, the immediate challenge is to make the most of a limited supply. The government estimates that 95 million people still qualify for shots under the voluntary restrictions announced last week. That's nearly twice the number of doses that clinics will have on hand, but only 60 million Americans seek out shots in a normal year. In fact, many experts are hoping the shortage will serve as an awareness campaign--encouraging the people who really need a flu shot to get one.

　　1. Shortages of flue vaccine show that ____.
　　[A] America relies too much on foreign suppliers
　　[B] the demand of flue vaccines is high this year
　　[C] quality problem is a serious problem in flu vaccine production
　　[D] the supply of flu vaccines is rather weak and America has no back-up measures to make it up

　　2. The word “cleared” (Line 5, Paragraph 3) might mean ____.
　　[A]permitted
　　[B]removed
　　[C]proved
　　[D]produced

　　3. Private companies have little interest in producing flu vaccines because of ____.
　　[A]complicated process, high cost, low profit and high risk
　　[B]shortages of fertilized chicken eggs
　　[C]difficulty in growing live virus
　　[D]fast changing of flu virus

　　4. From the last paragraph we can infer that ____.
　　[A] the government hopes to solve the problem by way of volunteer restrictions
　　[B] more than 47 million Americans who are qualified to get flu vaccine shots can not get them this year
　　[C] America has to deal with a limited supply of flu vaccines this year
　　[D] normally only a small percentage of American population gets flu vaccine shots each year

　　5. According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?
　　[A] All Americans are persuaded not to get vaccinated this year.
　　[B] The big problem in innovating flu vaccine producing technique is how to grow virus in a new way.
　　[C] More flu vaccines can not be produced in a short time because private companies refuse to produce more.
　　[D] Flu vaccines are easier than most vaccines to produce through cell cultures.

　　答案：D A A B B

　　篇章剖析

　　本篇文章探讨了美国流感疫苗短缺事件，经济成因以及当前以及未来的解决办法。第一段，作者介绍了美国流感疫苗短缺问题以及其直接原因；第二段中，作者剖析了其背后的经济原因；在第三段里，作者介绍了解决短缺问题的办法之一---革新疫苗生产技术，将其从受精卵中转移到细胞培养。第四段中，作者探讨了美国的当务之急：如何利用好有限的疫苗。出路就是号召公民发扬风格，将注射疫苗的机会让给敏感群体。

　　词汇注释

　　trench: [trentF] n. 战壕

　　whopper: [5(h)wCpE] n. 弥天大谎

　　bar: [bB:(r)] v. 禁止

　　Chiron Corp 奇隆公司。该公司总部设在加州，是一家生物技术公司。其业务和研究主要集中在三大领域：生物制药、疫苗以及血液检测。

　　dwindle: [5dwindl] v. 缩小

　　beseech: [bi5si:tF] v. 恳求

　　vaccinate: [5vAksineit] v. 接种疫苗

　　fragility: [frE5dViliti] n. 脆弱

　　the National Network for Immunization Information （美国）全国防疫信息网

　　redundancy: [rI5dQndEnsI] n. 备份

　　knock out 击倒

　　incentive: [in5sentiv] n. 动机

　　fertilized chicken egg 已受精鸡蛋

　　crack: [krAk] v. （使）破裂

　　harvest: [5hB:vist] v. 收获

　　extract: [iks5trAkt] v. 提取

　　immune response 免疫反应

　　profit margin 利润率

　　fickle: [5fikl] adj. 变化无常的

　　sleek: [sli:k] adj. 圆滑的打磨过的

　　fiasco: [fI5AskEJ] n. 惨败

　　innovation: [7inEu5veiFEn] n. 改革，创新

　　culture: [5kQltFE] n. 细菌培养

　　biotech: [baiEu5tek] n. 生物技术

　　culture-based adj. 基于细菌培养技术的

　　clear: [kliE] v. 批准，准许

　　an awareness campaign 公民道德意识活动

　　难句突破

　　“This re-emphasizes the fragility of our vaccine supply," says Dr. Martin Myers of the National Network for Immunization Information, "and the lack of redundancy in our system.”

　　主体句式：This re-emphasizes the fragility and the lack…

　　结构分析：该句的难点在于如何理解re-emphasizes和redundancy的情感内涵。re-emphasizes通常表示“再次强调”，但根据其宾语中的关键名词“fragility（脆弱）”和“lack（缺乏）”两个词的语义内涵判断，re-emphasizes在本句中应该表示“凸显出（问题）”。Redundancy通常表示“冗余（不必要的重复”，但在本句中表示“（为了避免出现问题而进行的）必要的重复”。由此可见，根据具体语境，才能正确理解词汇的意思。

　　句子译文：“